More Scary Stuff.

I read in the paper last week that fifteen of lovely modernising David Cameron's front bench were Old Etonians. I was shocked, to some extent because I mistook this to be the Shadow Cabinet, which numbers around twenty.

But Peter Hitchen's documentary last night quoted almost the same figure; on his reckoning it's thirteen.

Mrs Mishmash [who used to work in politics] put me right on my terminology. The front bench is the Cabinet [or in this case the Shadow Cabinet] and their junior Ministers; a total of about fifty.

So somewhere between a quarter and a third of the proposed Tory government went to one tiny school, and played one weird kind of football.

That's not modernisation; that's just scary.

Drew Mishmash

Scary Stuff.

I read something truly frightening in the newspaper over the weekend.

Sir Ronald Cohen, once Chairman of Apax, one of the largest private equity groups in the world, was sketching out his ideas for community development schemes in the UK.

A Social Investment Bank, created and funded from derelict bank accounts, insurance funds and premium bonds, would invest in voluntary groups and social enterprises not currently supported by the retail banks. Gordon Brown likes Mr Cohen; and reading his article, so do I.

But look at the opening premise;

“Governments are just not powerful enough to maintain social cohesion. The wealth chasm between rich and poor is widening and the result will be violent reactions from those left behind”.

Perhaps governments are not powerful enough; perhaps they are not creative enough; perhaps they do not care enough. Whatever the reason, it’s a scary proposition.

Drew Mishmash

Toot. But Not Sweet.

It’s coming to light that the Tutankhamun exhibition coming to London in November of this year will not include the precious funerary death mask. The show has attracted more that three million visitors on the American leg of the world tour; and the non-appearance of the golden mask is attracting rage from ticket holders.

Like many young children, I was fascinated with King Tut, the Pyramids, and the Pharaohs; but having no conception of travelling from Scotland, I made my parents life a nagging misery when the treasures visited London in 1972, culpa Blue Peter.

I have seen the death mask twice since then. Firstly, on its last excursion from Egypt, in a breathless Köln Messe in 1982; and then later in The Egyptian Museum in Cairo in 1992.

I chose my time to visit carefully in Cairo, toured the other galleries of the Museum the preceding day, and ascertained the location of the Tutankhamun mask without actually seeing it. I enjoyed a heated argument with an Egyptian historian about why, if the ancients could make steel as he claimed, they had chosen not to document this among the impressive records of their artisan building skills. Then I went out into the sun.

I returned a few minutes before the Museum opened the next day, went straight to the room in which the mask resided, and was rewarded with almost an hour alone with the dead King of Kings. He is shockingly beautiful; the opulence of the gold fades quickly and you find yourself just longing to kiss those lips. The serenity of his almond eyes mesmerise you, as the vulture and cobra in his crown wait to strike. His features are not those of any race, not identifiably Arabic, African, or Asian; and they are completely androgynous too. I very slowly began to feel, as his servants intended, that I was looking at the Face of God.

I left a changed man.

Drew Mishmash

Philosophy For Beginners.

A quote from the very readable Steerforth at The Age of Uncertainty…

A man has started teaching philosophy to children of nursery school age. What a brilliant idea. Small children are natural philosophers and it is sad to see their enquiring minds blunted by outside influences.

Primary school philosophy is a perennial ‘and finally’ story which pops up now and again, on quiet news days. And Steerforth is quite right, kids are extraordinarily adept at some kinds of philosophy, largely, I think, because they don’t think it’s inappropriate to ask “But, why?” more than three times in a row.

Nursery age children are at precisely the developmental stage where they are beginning to see themselves as one individual person among many; in a world over which they may not have causal control. This makes them ripe for enjoying the philosophy of responsibility, rights and duties. “That’s what big boys/girls do” is a pretty clear approximation of Spinoza’s instruction to behave as if one’s own actions were the universal law.

Their minds are a tabula rasa and consequently nursery children are good at epistemological thought experiments too. They are excitedly attracted to the suggestion that, in their absence, the room’s furniture will turn purple and fly around. Adults, sadly, can only see value in the Berkelian response, “Well, why would it?”

As I am writing this the same story pops up again on BBC Radio 4. A primary school teacher is using topical interest in the bicentenary of the abolition of slavery to start a discussion on freedom. Almost immediately the students question the nature of freedom; is it an absolute, as most people imagine, or conditional, which is nearer to the truth.

The one odd thing about reports of this kind is the revelation that students are repeatedly taught to respect the opinions of others, from the Cartesian principle of defending those others’ rights to say something with which one disagrees. While this is no doubt a good thing, it has virtually no provenance in the history of philosphy – in fact, if there is one at all, then rounding up and killing heretics is the historic tradition of longest standing.

Just don’t tell the kids.


Drew Mishmash

Top Ten Scottish Singles.

I discovered the fan-dabi-dozi Scottish pop website The Great Jock n Roll Single not so long ago, and they asked me to submit my top ten Scottish singles for general ridicule.

So, resisting the temptation to add spurious and trivial comments throughout, here it is.

Simple Minds – Changeling [1980]
APB – Danceability [1984]
The River Detectives – Chains [1989]
The Proclaimers – Throw The ‘R’ Away [1987] *
Travis – Why Does It Always Rain On Me? [1999]
Altered Images – Happy Birthday [1981]
Big Country – Fields Of Fire [1983] **
Primal Scream – Loaded [1990]
The Jesus and Mary Chain – Upside Down [1984]
Cocteau Twins – The Spangle Maker [1984]

Bubbling Under – Two Helens/Aztec Camera/Orange Juice/Bay City Rollers

Worst Song Ever – Andy Cameron – Ally’s Tartan Army [1978]

* I maintain that this is the best opening track of any album, ever.

** I was at Big Country’s last ever gig in England, and when Stuart said goodbye and thanked us for our support over the years, I shed a tear. I cried buckets when he died.

Drew Mishmash

Cash For Honours (ii).

Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin.

Told you so.

Andrew Mishmash